Dissoi Logoi: A New Commented Edition

Abstract

What in 1897 Ernst Weber first called ‘Dissoi Logoi’ is an untitled work written by an anonymous author in a peculiar kind of Doric dialect and which was handed down at the end of a few manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus. Since Thomas Robinson’s authoritative edition in 1979, most scholars have regarded Dissoi Logoi as a collection of lecture notes by a sophist lived between the 5th and 4th century BCE. In this thesis, articulated in five chapters, I will analyse and, where necessary, rethink the standard view about the most salient historical, philological and philosophical matters concerning Dissoi Logoi.
After briefing the reader on the theoretical and methodological framework of my research (Preface), I will devote the first chapter (Introduction) to the transmission, language, literary influences, date, place, and nature of the work.
In the second chapter (Critical Text and Translation), I will offer my critical Greek text of Dissoi Logoi and a parallel English translation of it.
In the third chapter (Commentary), I will closely analyse the most relevant lemmas, from a linguistic, rhetorical and philosophical viewpoint.
In the fourth chapter (The Author’s Message), firstly, I will investigate the work as a whole, thus tackling the highly debated problem of its unity; then, I will draw an overall outline of the author’s sophistic thought; finally, I will assess the possible theoretical connections between this work and the later Pyrrhonean tradition.
At the end of this journey, I will summarize the various conclusions which I have reached throughout the thesis and which delineate a new portrait of Dissoi Logoi, alternative to that of the standard view (Conclusion).